Woolly Rhinoceros

The woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis) is an extinct species of rhinoceros that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene epoch. The woolly rhinoceros was large, comparable in size to the largest living rhinoceros species, the white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum), and covered with long, thick hair that allowed it to survive in the extremely cold, harsh mammoth steppe. It had a massive hump reaching from its shoulder and fed mainly by grazing on herbaceous plants that grew in the steppe. Mummified carcasses preserved in permafrost and many bone remains of woolly rhinoceroses have been found. Images of woolly rhinoceroses are found among cave paintings in Europe and Asia, and evidence has been found suggesting that the species was hunted by humans. Like other Pleistocene megafauna, the species became extinct as part of the end-Pleistocene extinction event. The range of the woolly rhinoceros contracted towards Siberia beginning around 17,000 years ago, with the youngest reliable records being around 14,000 years old in northeast Siberia, coinciding with the Bølling–Allerød warming, which likely disrupted its habitat, with environmental DNA records possibly extending the range of the species around 9,800 years ago. Its closest living relative is the Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis).

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Woolly rhinoceros, by its authors, under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.